Tech sign

Up a cobbled street in Rochdale you’ll find these fine terracotta signs marking the original site of Rochdale Technical School. The college was built in 1892 and closed in 1989. They were saved when the building was demolished and were stored at the Touchstones gallery, but were too heavy to exhibit. They were returned to their original site in 2010. 

On the tiles

Beautiful tiled office sign at Manchester's Victoria Station. The station dates from 1839 and was recently refurbished. Its fantastic ticket hall and tiled map are worth the visit alone.

In at the deep end

This sign is at the luscious Victoria Baths in Hathersage Road, Manchester. Opened in 1906, the baths are a sumptuous celebration of public bathing. With three swimming pools, a Turkish bath, slipper baths and a laundry, the facilities were described at the time as the most splendid in the country.

Victoria Baths closed in 1993, and a gutsy restoration campaign has worked hard to get the building open and to restore the glory of the stained glass, mosaic floors, terracotta and tiles that make it so gorgeous.

If you’ve not yet visited, you’ve probably seen it without realising, as the Baths have often starred as a TV location (Life on Mars,  Floggit, Antiques Roadshow and Peaky Blinders to name a few). They run an imaginative programme of arts events, open days and vintage fairs – but it’s worth a visit for the tiles alone. Find out more here.

On a mission

I must have walked past this building dozens of times, but last week I happened to look up and I spotted the sign for Manchester and Salford Street Children’s Mission, so I felt moved to find out more.

This fine terracotta building was part of the Wood Street Mission, a charity founded by Alfred Alsop in 1869 (and named after the premises it moved into in 1873). The Mission aimed to relieve the misery of the poor - particularly the children of the nearby slums; it also helped convicts and tramps. It ran soup kitchens, handed out clogs and clothing, and provided breakfast, presents and entertainment at Christmas. It later went on to organise days out at the seaside, and ran holiday camps.

The charity still exists. It is still in Wood Street, and it continues to provide practical help to alleviate the effects of poverty on local children and families in Manchester and Salford. See www.woodstreetmission.org.uk